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"Large businesses with the might of their purchasing power have the means to uncover modern slavery in their supply chains and the economic firepower to cut it off at the source."
Wesfarmers, on whose board Ms Westacott serves, and its subsidiary Target are buying partners of the International Labour Organisation and International Finance Corporation's Better Work Program which works towards providing ethical supply chains.
Large businesses with the might of their purchasing power have the means to uncover modern slavery in their supply chains and the economic firepower to cut it off at the source.
Jennifer Westacott
Australia is the second jurisdiction in the world after the UK to introduce national laws to address the risk of modern slavery in tainted supply chains.
By July next year, companies with consolidated annual revenue of more than $100 million must provide a written statement on what steps they are taking to ensure their supply chains are slavery-free under new Commonwealth legislation.
Under NSW law, companies with a turnover of more than $50 million a year will be required to make a similar report.
John McCarthy, QC, who chairs the anti-slavery taskforce for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.
The NSW law also introduces an anti-slavery commissioner, which former ambassador to the Holy See, John McCarthy, strongly supports. He hopes the Commonwealth will also introduce a national commissioner.
Mr McCarthy, who now serves as the chairman of the Sydney Archdiocesan Anti-Slavery Taskforce, said the introduction of the new federal and NSW laws were important steps.
Friday's event is designed to help businesses prepare for new laws which will make them accountable for slavery in their supply chains.
Mr McCarthy said as one of the largest employers in the country, the Catholic Church is taking a leading role in ensuring its supply chains comply with the new laws. It is reviewing and revising its contractual and business practices.
Sonja Duncan, director of SD Strategies Pty Ltd, advises companies including Blackmores, Virgin Australia Airlines, PepsiCo, St Vincent's Health Australia and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage’s Sustainability Advantage Program on modern slavery risk management.
I think it is also really important for businesses to understand their own business models ... and take some responsibility for what happens downstream.
Sonja Duncan
"We talk a lot about supply chains. I think it is also really important for businesses to understand their own business models ... and take some responsibility for what happens downstream," she said.
"However unintentional a contribution they might make to modern slavery, if they are asking for cheaper products, faster turnaround times, seasonal production - all of that incentivises their suppliers to pay their workers less, to demand more over time ... to cut corners in safety."
Business leaders will also hear from Moe Turaga who left Fiji for Australia as a teenager and worked up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week on a grape farm in Victoria for money to send back to his widowed mother.
Two years later he discovered that his mother had received none of the money he had entrusted his cousin to send back to her.
Moe Turaga was a victim of modern slavery on a farm in Australia and now fights to have it abolished. Credit:Ryan Stuart
"Like most boys I wanted to do the right thing by my mum," Mr Turaga says. "She let me know in no uncertain terms that my cousin hadn’t sent her any money at all.
"Angry, cheated, deceived, ashamed, powerless, trapped – all of these emotions and worse. That’s what it feels like to find out you’re someone else’s slave."
Anna Patty is Workplace Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald. She is a former Education Editor, State Political Reporter and Health Reporter. Her reports on inequity in schools funding led to the Gonski reforms and won her national awards. Her coverage of health exposed unnecessary patient deaths at Campbelltown Hospital and led to judicial and parliamentary inquiries. At The Times of London, she exposed flaws in international medical trials.